I 




Leland Stanford, Jr. 



STANFORD UNIVERSITY 



AND 



THEREABOUTS 



BY 

O. L. ELLIOTT 

AND 

O. V. EATON 



fW^ 



i Of Cj- 



! APR gniB9Ri 



r% %H ^ / 



San Francisco 

C. A. MuRDOCK & Co., Printers 
1896 



Copyright, 1896 

BY 

O. L. Elliott 



Half-tones by the 

Sunset Photo & Engraving Co. 

San Francisco 









The thajiks of the authors are especially due to 
Mr. Harold Heath, Mr. Arthur F. Poole, Mr. Horner 
Laughlin, Jr., Mr. D. W. Murphy, a?id Mr. W. R. 
Shaw, for the use of photographs, and for other 
assistance in the preparation of the book. The map 
on page 23 is taken by permissioji from N. F. Drake's 
relief map of California. 

March 2, i8g6. 



CONTENTS. 

Page 

The Founders 9 

The Trustees 12 

The Estate 21 

The University 25 

Special Mention 52 

Athletics — University Extras — Summer School — 
Hopkins Laboratory. 

The Surroundings 61 

Palo Alto — Mayfield — Private Grounds — Arbo- 
retum — Escondite — Cedro — Adelante, Los Tran- 
cos — Stock Farm. 

Tramping Grounds 71 

Foothills — Mountains — Awheel. 

The Seasons 77 



STANFORD UNIVERSITY 



AND 



THEREABOUTS 




Mr. Stanford. 



THE FOUNDERS. 



I ELAND STANFORD was born at Watervliet, near Albany, New 
York, March 9, 1824. His father was a public-spirited farmer, 
J who added to his regular occupation road and bridge building, 
and finally railroad grading in the infant days of railroad building in 
the State. Young Leland grew up on the farm, with the usual 
succession of farm duties and district schooling, and at twenty-two 
went to Albany to study law. His law studies completed, he turned 
to the West for a start in his profession and settled at Port Washing- 
ton, a frontier town of Wisconsin. After four years of steady work, 
nearly all his worldly possessions, including his law library, were 
destroyed by fire. This was in 1852. The California fever was then 
at its height, and unexpectedly adrift, he gravitated naturally to the 
Golden State, where three brothers had already preceded him. 
With them he entered into extensive mercantile operations in Sacra- 
mento and the adjacent mining country, and in the course of the 
next eight years amassed the comfortable fortune of a quarter of a 
million dollars. In i860, he was chosen a delegate to the convention 
that nominated Lincoln, afterward witnessed the inauguration, and 
remained in Washington some weeks, holding frequent consultations 
with the President regarding Pacific Coast affairs. From Washington 
he went to Albany for a long visit, and with the half-formed intention 
of settling down for life in the old home. But he soon discovered 
that his deepest interests were in California, and in midsummer he 
returned to find himself already nominated for Governor by the new 
Republican party. He was triumphantly elected, and in the trying 
days of the Civil War was able to render material aid to the cause 
of the Union. Before his term of office expired, he became deeply 
interested in the project of a transcontinental railway, and, declining 
a renomination, threw all his energies into the project of the Central 
Pacific Railroad. 

It is difficult, after this lapse of time, to realize the stupendous 
nature of the task which Leland Stanford and his coadjutors had 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

undertaken. To the then almost insoluble engineering problems 
were added the difficulty of obtaining materials for construction, 
the ridicule and skepticism of the public, the bitter hostility of threat- 
ened interests, and the vast financial burdens to be borne. The 
building and management of the road and its extending lines and 
interests absorbed Mr. Stanford's main energies for a quarter of a 
century. Meantime his private fortune had grown to vast pro- 
portions, and with ample means to indulge his tastes and lesser 
ambitions there came a deepening sense of the responsibilities and 
opportunities which wealth brings. And so out of "the shadow of a 
great sorrow" — the death of his only child — grew the conception 
realized in the University. In 1885, he was elected to the United 
States Senate, and reelected in 1891. His death occurred at Palo 
Alto, June 21, 1893. 

Jane Lathrop Stanford, daughter of Dyer Lathrop, merchant, 
was born in Albany, New York, in 1828. She was married to Mr. 
Stanford in 1850, sharing with him two years of pioneer life at Port 
Washington. Her life in California is naturally bound up with the 
great undertakings of her husband. Sympathy, kindliness, affection, 
are the qualities which have been most conspicuous in her home 
and public life. With these has gone a business faculty which en- 
abled her to share to the full the busy labors, the hopes and plans, 
of Mr. Stanford; and it is this quality which has come out so strikingly 
in her management of the complicated affairs so suddenly thrust 
upon her by the death of her husband. Besides all this, she has 
given generously of both money and personal attention to many 
private interests of her own. Especially is this true of the kinder- 
garten work on the coast, in which she became early and deeply 
interested. Since the death of Mr. Stanford, she has, with heroic 
courage and self-denial, devoted herself wholly to the University. 




10 




Mrs. Stanford. 



THE TRUSTEES. 



THE first meeting of the Board of Trustees was held in Mr, 
Stanford's parlors, in San Francisco, November 14, 1885. At 
this meeting the Grant of Endowment was formally conveyed 
to the Trustees and announced to the public. By the terms of the 
Endowment, the sole management of the University and its properties 
is vested in the grantors during their lives, or the life of either 
of them. The time for active participation, therefore, on the part 
of these Trustees has not yet arrived; but eventually the whole man- 
agement and control of all the endowments and offices of the Uni- 
versity will be vested in their hands. The Board is self-perpetuating, 
and the members are elected for life. Of the original twenty-four 
named by Mr. Stanford, the following have died : Judge Lorenzo 
Sawyer, first Chairman of the Board; the Hon. James McMillan 
Shafter, the Hon. Henry Vrooman, Mr. Josiah Stanford, the Hon. 
John F. Miller, Judge Matthew P. Deady, the Hon. John Q. Brown. 
There is at present one vacancy, caused by the resignation of Justice 
Stephen J. Field. The present Trustees are : 

Francis Elias Spencer, San Jose, Chairman of the Board. 
Born at Ticonderoga, New York, September 25, 1834. Came to Cal- 
ifornia in 1852, settling at San Jose. Studied law, and was admitted 
to the bar in 1858. District Attorney of Santa Clara County, i86r-66. 
Member of the State Assembly, 1871-75. Judge of the Superior 
Court of Santa Clara County, 1879-91. 

Charles Goodall, San Francisco. Born in Somersetshire, 
England, December 20, 1824. Came to New York in 1841. Tried 
farm life for two years, and in 1843 shipped from New Bedford for a 
three years' whaling voyage. Came to California m 1850 and tried 
mining, but went back to a seafaring life. Returning to San Fran- 
cisco, founded the commercial house of Goodall, Perkins & Co. Has 
been Harbor Commissioner, and served one term in the Legislature. 

12 



. Stanford University and Thereabonts. 

Alfred L. Tubes, San Francisco. Born in Deering, New Hamp- 
shire, December, 17, 1827. At seventeen entered into the wholesale 
grocery business, finally becoming cashier and bookkeeper for a large 
Boston house. Was sent to California by the firm in 1850. Estab- 
lished in San Francisco the mercantile and manufacturing house 
ofTubbs&Co. State Senator, 1865-69. Country residence at Calis- 
toga, purchased in 1882. Visited Europe in 1868-69, and spent winter 
of 1890-91 in Egypt. 

Charles Frederick Crocker, San Francisco. Born in Sacra- 
mento, December 26, 1854. Educated at the California Military 
Academy and Brooklyn (N. Y.) Polytechnic Institute. Entered the 
service of the Central Pacific Railroad in 1877, eventually becoming 
Third Vice-President. Vice-President of the Southern Pacific Com- 
pany since the death of his father; President of the Occidental and 
Oriental Steamship Company; President of the Board of Trustees 
of the California Academy of Sciences; Regent of the University 
of California. 

Timothy Hopkins, Menlo Park. Born in Augusta, Maine, March 
2, 1859. Came to California in 1862. Educated in public schools 
of Sacramento and Urban Academy, San Francisco. Entered the 
service of the Central Pacific Railroad as Division Superintendent in 
1881. Treasurer of the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific Com- 
panies from 1883 to 1892. Made a trip to Japan in 1891, and visited 
Egypt and the countries of Europe in 1893-94. 

Henry Lee Dodge, San Francisco. Born in Montpelier, Ver- 
mont, January 31, 1825. Entered the University of Vermont in 1847, 
but was obliged to leave college before finishing his course on account 
of ill health. Was afterward awarded an honorary degree. In 1847, 
began the study of law in Burlington, Vermont. Came to California 
in 1849, by way of Mexico. Clerk of the Alcalde's Court in San 
Francisco in 1849, ^""^ clerk to Mayor Geary after the admission 
of California in 1850. Practiced law from 1851 to 1856, when the 
present mercantile house of Dodge, Sweeney & Co. was formed. 
Supervisor in 1861-62, and State Senator, 1863-67. Superintendent 
of the Mint, 1877-82. President of the San Francisco Chamber 
of Commerce, 1885-86. Elected President of the Sather Banking 
Company, 1877. President of the San Francisco Board of Education 
since 1895. 

13 
B 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

Irving Murray Scott, San Francisco. Born at Hebron Mills, 
Maryland, December 25, 1837. Learned iron and wood working 
trade, and studied marine engineering and mechanical drawing in 
Baltimore. Came to California in i860. Chief Draughtsman, Union 
Iron Works, 186 r; Miners' Foundry, 1862-63. Superintendent and 
General Manager, Union Iron Works, 1863; partner, 1883. Regent 
of the University of California, 1878-80. Has been president of many 
local societies, and is a member of numerous clubs. President Cal- 
ifornia World's Fair Commission, 1893. Around the world in 1880. 
Visited Europe in 1892, and Japan in 1895. 

Harvey Willson Harkness, San Francisco. Born in Pelham, 
Massachusetts, May 25, 182 1. Educated in public schools and Mt. 
Williston Seminary. Graduated in medicine (M. D.) from the 
Pittsfield Medical School. Came across the plains in 1849, ^i^<^ began 
the practice of his profession in Sacramento. The year 1869, and 
two or three following years spent in travel; then engaged in scientific 
work for the San Francisco Microscopical Society and the California 
Academy of Sciences. President of the California Academy of Sci- 
ences, 1887-96. 

Horace Davis, San Francisco. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, 
March 16, 1831. Graduated from Harvard College, 1849. Began the 
study of law, but prevented by ill health from finishing course. 
Came to California in 1852, Established Golden Gate Flouring 
Mills in i860. Member of Congress from San Francisco district, 
1876-80. President of Chamber of Commerce, 1883-85. President 
of the University of California, 1888-90. President of the California 
School of Mechanical Arts (Lick Mechanical School) since its estab- 
lishment. Vice-President of the American Unitarian Association. 

John Boggs, Princeton. Born at Potosi, Missouri, July 2, 1S29. 
Entered Fayette College, but left before completing course, and 
came to California in 1849. Engaged in mining and stock raising, 
finally turning his attention entirely to farming. Owns many thousand 
acres in Colusa and Tehama Counties, and is an extensive grower 
of wool. County Supervisor, 1857-66, and State Senator, 1871-75. 

Thomas Bard McFarland, San Francisco. Born near Mercers- 
burg, Pennsylvania, April 19, 1828. Graduated at Marshall College 

14 





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Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

(now united with Franklin College) in 1846. Studied law and 
admitted to the bar in 1849, Crossed the plains in 1850, and followed 
mining for three years. Practiced law in Nevada City from 1853 to 
1861. Elected to the Legislature in 1855. District Judge, Fourteenth 
Judicial District, 1861-70. Practiced law in Sacramento from 1870 
to 1882. Judge of Superior Court of Sacramento County, 1882-86. 
Justice of the Supreme Court of California since 1886. 

Isaac Sawyer Belcher, San Francisco. Born in Stockbridge, 
Vermont, February 27, 1825. Graduated from the University of Ver- 
mont in 1846. Studied law and admitted to the bar in 1849. Came 
to California in 1853. Tried mining, but soon began the practice 
of his profession in Marysville. Since 1885 has held the office 
of Commissioner of the Supreme Court. 

George Edward Gray, San Francisco. Born in Verona, New 
York, September 12, 1818. Studied civil engineering. Chief Engi- 
neer of the New York Central Railroad from 1853 to 1865. Consult- 
ing Engineer of the Central Pacific Railroad, 1865 to 1871, and 
of the Southern Pacific Railroad, 1871 to 1885. Member of the Insti- 
tution of Civil Engineers of London, and of the American Society 
of Civil Engineers. 

Nathan Weston Spaulding, San Francisco. Born in North An- 
son, Maine, September 24, 1829. Learned the trade of a carpenter 
and also of a millwright. Came to California in 1851. Engaged in 
mining, mill construction, and lumbering. In 1859, i'ni Sacramento, 
concentrated his energies upon the manufacture of saws, taking out 
many valuable patents. Removed to San Francisco in 1861. Twice 
Mayor of Oakland. Assistant United States Treasurer at San Fran- 
cisco, 1881-85. 

William Morris Stewart, Carson City, Nevada. Born in Lyons, 
New York, August 9, 1827. Entered Yale College in 1846, remaining 
until 1849. Came to California in 1850. Tried mining for two years. 
Began the study of law in 1852, and appointed District Attorney the 
same year. Appointed Attorney-General of California in 1854. Re- 
moved to Nevada in i860. Member of the Territorial Council, 1861-62. 
United States Senator from Nevada, 1864-75, and since 1887. 

16 






td 
o 

OP 









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f:p,M 







Stanford University and Thereabouts, 

Horatio Stebbins, San Francisco. Born in South Wilbraham, 
Massachusetts, in 1821. Educated at PhilHps Exeter Academy and 
Harvard College, graduating in 1848. In 1851, graduated from Har- 
vard Divinity School, and was settled over the First Unitarian Church 
of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. In 1855, was called to the church in 
Portland, Maine, from whence (in 1864) he was called to the First 
Unitarian Church in San Francisco, of which he is still the minister. 
He was a Regent of the State University from its beginning in 1868 
to 1894. Degree of D. D. conferred by Bowdoin College in 1869. 

Joseph Donohoe Grant, San Francisco. Born in San Francisco 
in 1858. Graduated from the University of California in 1880. Spent 
two years in Europe, and returning entered the house of Murphy, 
Grant & Co., becoming a partner in 1887. 

Samuel Franklin Leib, San Jose. Born in Ohio, January 18, 
1848. Graduate of the University of Michi,yan. Enlisted in the United 
States Army at the age of sixteen, serving under General Lew Wal- 
lace. Practiced law a short time in Missouri. Came to Sari Jose in 
1869, and has been engaged in the practice of his profession since 
that time. 

Leon Sloss, San Francisco. Born in Sacramento, June 26, 1858. 
Educated in Frankfort, Germany, the public schools of Sacramento, 
and the University of California. Member of the firm of Louis Sloss 
& Co. (Alaska Com.mercial Company), since 1877. 

Edv^^ard Robeson Taylor, San Francisco. Born in Springfield, 
Illinois, September 24, 1838. Came to California in 1862. Graduated 
from the Toland Medical College, 1865. Admitted to the bar in 1872. 
Private Secretary to Governor Haight during his term of office. Mem- 
ber of the third Board of Freeholders for framing Charter for San 
Francisco. President of Bar Association of San Francisco for four 
years. Vice-President of Cooper Medical College. Trustee of the 
San Francisco Law Library and of the Free Public Library. 

Thomas Welton Stanford, Melbourne, Australia. Brother 
of Leland Stanford. Was a member of the mercantile firm of the 
Stanford Brothers in Sacramento and San Francisco. Upon the 

18 



Stanford University atid Thereabouts. 

dissolution of tlie firm went to Australia, and, with his brother 
De Witt opened up an extensive business in the importation of 
kerosene and kerosene lamps. 

Frank Miller, Sacramento. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Jan- 
uary 19, 1842. Came to California in 1857. Entered Yale College in 
1861, but left college in 1862 and enlisted in Second Wisconsin Vol- 
unteer Infantry. Was in the severe engagements of Second Bull Run, 
Antietam, and Fredericksburg. Became Sergeant in the General Ser- 
vice Corps, U. S. A. In 1865, was made Cashier, and later President, 
of the D. O. Mills National Bank, of Sacramento. 

Charles G. Lathrop, San Francisco. Brother of Mrs. Stanford. 
Born in Albany, New York, May 11, 1849. Educated in the public 
schools of Albany. Entered the employ of the Union (afterward 
Union National) Bank of Albany at the age of fourteen. Came to 
California in 1877. Entered the passenger department of the South- 
ern Pacific Company, resigning after two years to go into the employ 
of Mr. Stanford. At present Business Manager of the Stanford estate. 
Treasurer of the University, and a Director of the Southern Pacific 
Company. 

The Secretary of the Board is Mr. Herbert C. Nash, formerly 
tutor of Leland Stanford, Jr., and Private Secretary to Senator Stan- 
ford. 




19 





The Old Mission Architecture. 



THE ESTATE. 




W 



HEN Governor Portola, 
in 1769, first looked 
down from the heights 
of the Sierra Morena, across the 
long arm of the Bay and over to 
the line of mountains beyond, 
his gaze must have taken in the 
broad plain, the winding San 
Francisquito. and the tumbled 
foothills which mark the now fa- 
miliar University campus. Pre- 
sumably his march lay across 
some part of it, and it is certain 
that he camped on the bank 
of the San Francisquito. A 
tangled stretch it was then, 
covered with giant oaks and 
thickly growing chemisal ; and 
so continued long afterward — 
while it formed a part of the 
Santa Clara Mission; when ad- 
venturous Don Antonio Buelna 
received permission to occupy 
it (in 1837); when tricky Casa 
Nueva succeeded in getting it 
away from Francisco Rodriguez 
(in 1853). Then came a more 
commercial period, when squat- 
ters and land-jumpers parceled 
it out, and when huge ovens, erected here and there, converted the 
magnificent oaks into charcoal for the San Francisco market. In 
1862, the great flood swept away all but two of the sequoias scat- 

21 



The Palo Alto. 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

tered along the banks of the San Francisquito. In 1863, George 
Gordon, a wealthy San Francisco business-man, bought the San 
Francisquito Rancho, of fourteen hundred acres, built the house 
which, much altered, is now the Stanford residence, and among 
other improvements laid out Eucalyptus Avenue. He died in 1869, 
and in the following year the estate was purchased by Mr. Stanford, 
who gradually added to the original tract until it embraced the pres- 
ent campus of more than eight thousand acres. 

In addition to the Palo Alto estate, two other estates were made 
the inalienable possession of the University. The first of these is the 
Vina Ranch, situated at the junction of Deer Creek with the Sac- 
ramento River, in Tehama County. It contains fifty-five thousand 
acres, and was purchased by Mr. Stanford in 1881 for one million 
dollars. Four thousand acres are in vines, nearly eight thousand 
acres are cultivated for alfalfa, wheat, etc., and the remainder is 
plain and foothill grazing land. The second is the Ridley Ranch, 
in Butte County, comprising twenty-one thousand acres of rich wheat 
land, valued at perhaps a million and a half dollars. 







■■;;:^'-f^ --• "^ii 


^^^^^K't 





22 




Surroundings of the University. 




President Jordan. 




THE UNIVERSITY. 



T is not many years since the only university west of the 
Hudson recognized by the Four Hundred of academic 
culture — and then only with some condescension — was 
the University of Michigan. True, the question is still occa- 
sionally raised as to whether we have any universities at all, in the 
proper (Germanic) sense of the term ; and the inferential negative 
may or may not humble our pride. At any rate, our university circle, 
such as it is, is no longer restricted to Yale, Harvard, and Ann Arbor. 
A score and more of State and privately endowed institutions have 
already pressed closely upon the older universities, in wealth, equip- 
ment, numbers, and practical results. Cornell in twenty-five years, 
Johns Hopkins in fifteen, have reached a maturity for which two 
centuries were needed at Yale and Harvard. Other institutions, 
though lacking the propelling force of ample means and equipment, 
fall little behind in the true university spirit, and give, though in 
limited ways, equally thorough and scholarly training. That genuine 
universities may be created in a decade or two, the State institutions 
of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, and California 
bear ample testimony. As to whether they may be created in a day, 
some later experiments stand ready to be interrogated. 

Circumstances of somewhat varying character combined to attract 
unusual attention to the Stanford University. The great wealth of 
its founder and the unprecedented endowment which common fable 
ascribed to the institution, the unique plan of buildings and its sub- 
stantial realization in the fascinating inner quadrangle, the naivete o{ 
an institution with all the pretensions of a great university so remote 
from the centers of education and culture, the picturesqueness of an 
invasion of a commonwealth by an entire college faculty and two- 
fifths of the student body — a new race of Argonauts, — these are 
features of the University which have laid hold of the popular imagi- 
nation, not merely in California, but the country over. On its edu- 
cational side, the University has naturally made less popular im- 

25 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

pression. Yet it is in its break with tradition, in the vigor and 
freshness of its educational methods, that it is at once an object of 
solicitude to conservative scholarship, and an inspiration to edu- 
cational radicalism. Naturally, neither believers nor doubters are 
able to give to the course of affairs at Palo Alto quite the serious 
weight of established things. On the one hand, its friends regard 
the circumstances under which its experiments are being tried as 
altogether exceptional, and wait for the day of trial. On the other, 
its fearful censors cannot bring themselves to regard with perfect 
gravity the freaks of so youthful a faculty. At any rate, the Uni- 
versity has been assured a comparatively free field for development, 
and its growth and progress cannot fail to be watched with increas- 
ing interest. 

In March, 1884, Leland Stanford, Jr., the only child of Senator 
and Mrs. Stanford, died of malarial fever, in Italy. The child of 
many hopes, heir to a vast estate, he had reached the period when 
the question of education becomes paramount. Certain phases of 
educational movement had already interested him keenly, and 
though still in his sixteenth year, he had begun a collection of 
antiquities which he hoped might some time grow into a great 
museum worthy to be set up in San Francisco. To his parents, 
stricken with grief, hopes and plans crushed, the most fitting 
memorial to the life so rudely interrupted seemed the promotion of 
education in some of its many forms. The Stanfords were accus- 
tomed to deal with large forces and to secure large results. With 
modesty and simplicity, yet with the confidence born of success- 
ful achievement and the possession of great wealth, these two con- 
ceived the idea of doing for the children of California what they had 
hoped to do for their own son. To fill out the measure of such a 
generous purpose would require nothing less than a university as 
complete as their endeavor and fortune could provide; and to the 
realization of this project all other plans and interests gradually gave 
way. 

When the plan of the institution, with its proposed endowments, 
was given to the public, there was enough in the greatness of its 
conception and possibilities to fire the popular imagination. The 
personal regard for Mr. Stanford, even where the railroad with which 
he was associated was cordially hated, served to give the project, in 
its broad, general scope, an acceptance which it could not hope for 

26 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

when once it should begin to be wrought into detail. Yet, to the 
general observer, there had seemed little that was heroic in Mr. Stan- 
ford's idea. There was, of course, the steady opposition of business 
friends, who shared his sagacity and material success, but not his 
vision or faith in the " possibiHties of humanity." To them his found- 
ing a University at all seemed sheer folly and a waste of wealth. 
Yet, when Mr. Stanford resolutely disregarded the doublings and 
misgivings, and sometimes ridicule, of his business associates, and 
turned to the circle of education and culture, it is to be feared that he 
found scarcely more sympathy. When his firmness of purpose was 
realized, there were university men who gave encouragement and 
counsel; yet, even the most sympathetic could not forbear urging 
other ways of promoting education than the establishment of a 
brand-new university in a field already occupied. 

But Mr. Stanford was moved neither by ridicule nor by opposition 
of Philistines or scholars. He had his own university ideal, and 
taking what counsel he could get, he tried to set the standard at Palo 
Alto higher than he had seen it elsewhere. A special Act of the Leg- 
islature was sought, and in November, 1885, the Act of Endowment, 
embodying the charter of the institution and the gift of eighty thou- 
sand acres of land in the rich valleys of California, was made public. 

The place chosen for the new University was the Palo Alto estate, 
in the Santa Clara Valley, the seat of Mr. Stanford's country resi- 
dence. The Santa Clara Valley has long been famous for its beauty, 
fertility, and excellence of climate. Easy of access to the metropolis 
of the coast, free from the rigors of Eastern winters and the ex- 
tremes of Eastern summers, sheltered from the fogs and harsh winds 
of the coast, and from the intense summer heat of the interior valleys, 
with a rare ocean quality always in the air, the students at Palo Alto 
have one succession of springtime and autumn. The buildings are 
placed in the broad plain sloping up from the bay to the foothills 
of the Sierra Morena. The ground is high enough so that glimpses 
of the water are seen through the trees, while across the bay are the 
bold Diablos, rising four thousand feet, and showing at sunset a 
brilliant succession of colors. The Lick Observatory, crowning Mt. 
Hamilton, some thirty miles away, glistens white in the sunshine. 
Just behind are the foothills, covered with a straggling growth of live- 
oak, and beyond again are the mountains whose heights look down 
upon the Pacific over long stretches of redwood forest. 

.27 



Stayiford University and Thereabouts. 

The buildings themselves are unique in plan and exquisitely har- 
monious in effect. The Old Mission architecture — the long, low 
adobe buildings, with the wide colonnades and the open court, native 
outgrowth of the Moorish and Romanesque, — has been reproduced 
on imposing scale. Gathered about a court five hundred and twenty- 
eight by two hundred and forty-six feet, enclosing an area of three 
and a quarter acres paved with asphalt and diversified with eight 
immense beds of tropical plants and flowers, are the twelve buildings 
of the inner quadrangle. They are connected by a continuous open 
arcade facing the court, and are one story in height. The soft buff 
sandstone, the great expanse of red tile roof, the wide arcades, the 
simple but impressive arches, the luxuriance of tropical foliage, the 
distant glimpses of trees, and foothills, and mountains, give an im- 
pression of academic seclusion, serenity, and beauty, whose fascina- 
tion deepens as the months slip by under blue skies and flooding sun- 
shine. Other buildings already erected are the two dormitories, the 
Art Museum, the gymnasiums, various engineering structures, and 
numerous cottages. Encina Hall, the men's dormitory, occupies a 
ground area of three hundred and twelve by one hundred and fifty 
feet. It is four stories high, of the same material as the quadrangle, 
and decorated with end arcades, a central arched porch, and mosaic 
work. It is provided with electric lights, hot and cold water, steam 
heat, bathrooms on each floor, and will accommodate over three 
hundred students. Roble Hall, the women's dormitory, is of con- 
crete, and about a third the size of Encina. The Museum, also of 
concrete, occupies a ground area of three hundred and thirteen by 
one hundred and fifty-six feet. It contains already large collections 
of Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and American antiquities, and various 
miscellaneous collections of value. 

The first impression to visitors is usually disappointing. The 
plan provides for the erection of a second quadrangle entirely sur- 
rounding the first, with the buildings two stories in height, a con- 
nected arcade facing outward, and an imposing arch at the main 
entrance. When completed, and the needs of the University must 
soon compel its building, nothing will be lacking to the most beautiful 
college architecture in America. 

Mr. Stanford was slow in realizing the outward features of his 
plan. It was 1885 when the gift was announced. It was 1891 before 
a President was chosen or buildings sufficiently advanced to warrant 

28 



JO 

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Pi 

3 

OS, 
o 




Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

the starting of the University. Again and again it had been supposed 
that the institution would open its doors; indeed, such had been Mr. 
Stanford's hope; but delays seemed unavoidable. Meanwhile, of the 
educational plans and prospects of the new University little could 
be gathered by the general public, and such details as were scattered 
about by newspapers and real-estate agencies partook of the highly 
colored California imagination. For there presently took shape the 
vision of a University embracing all things possible and impossible, 
an institution of limitless wealth, lacking nothing which money could 
buy, exacting from every university and every land its tribute of ripe 
scholars and teachers, embracing every department of learning and 
art, from literature and music to the most practical trades of every- 
day life; and into all this magnificence the children of California 
ushered at the kindergarten age and carried through to the highest 
top, without money and without price, save for the self-supporting 
by-play of gathering grapes and picking roses ! What wonder that the 
observant, critical East smiled and shrugged its shoulders! What 
wonder that all the educational tramps and peripatetic philosophers 
of a continent turned their expectant faces toward Palo Alto as the 
assured Mecca of their hopes ! What wonder if the older University, 
conservative, proud of its position and achievements, itself the pro- 
duct of a unique environment, should view with some apprehension 
these forerunners of the new institution, and at last the inroad of 
barbarians which followed the appointment of a President from the 
Middle West! To Berkeley also came with special emphasis the 
question which chorused from every quarter of the East : Whence 
will come its students? Will its dash and vigor, its boom period, 
cripple the older, conservative institution ? Will it fall with ruthless 
hand upon the long and painfully wrought system of accrediting 
schools? Will it let down the bars so carefully placed by the State 
University? Will it uproot the scholarly traditions which Berkeley 
has cherished ? Suddenly recalling — as what University might not — 
the things it ought not to have done and the things it had left undone, 
it could hardly fail to feel some tremor of the coming disturbance. 
That under these circumstances the University of California should 
have exhibited such moderation and courtesy is proof of the high 
character of letters. That fears, and misgivings, and small jealousies 
should not find expression in any quarter, was not to be expected. 
In the main, however, a generous, fraternal welcome was given. 

30 



r 




■ 1 




West Entrance — Looking Out. 
East Entrance — Looking In. 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

October i, 1891, the breath of life was breathed into the fashioned 
clay. Under cloudless skies, in the open court of the inner quad- 
rangle the new University was dedicated to the service of humanity. 
Mr. Stanford for himself and his wife, Judge Shafter for the trustees. 
President Kellogg for the University of California, President Jordan 
for faculty and students, gave solemn sanction to the pledge and 
promise of the future; while the students, for the first time assembled, 
gave utterance to the college yell which marked the visible entrance 
of a new university into the world. In 1890-91, the University of 
California had numbered four hundred and fifty students. In 1891, 
five hundred students greeted the faculty of Stanford, while as many 
more had already enrolled at Berkeley. 

The University is now in its fifth year. The five hundred students 
have grown to eleven hundred ; the instructing body has increased 
from thirty to eighty. Milestones have been set up. The University 
is a definite, tangible entity, and can be seen somewhat in perspective. 
All the various student activities which give color to academic life 
— the daily and weekly papers, the literary societies, the musical 
organizations, the collegiate and intercollegiate athletics, — have 
taken vigorous root. Faculty activity, outside the ordinary routine, 
has manifested itself in a large amount of university extension work, 
scientific expeditions, and especially in books, monographs, and 
magazine writing. Meantime the fears of the older university have 
mainly passed away, as new vigor and rapid growth have come to 
it out of the general impetus which the higher education has received. 

Yet, as the outlines of the University become more distinct, it will 
be seen that it does not readily yield to classification. It hardly falls 
in with tradition ; and for some of its features it must give and take 
the blows incident to educational warfare. What, then, is the spirit, 
what the distinctive characteristics of the Stanford University ? To 
say that the University stands for high scholarship, for that ideal 
lehrfreiheit of teacher and scholar, does not, of course, specially 
differentiate it from the modern university type. What characterizes 
Stanford is, that, finding itself untrammeled by the limitations, the 
vested rights, the ultra-conservative influences which surround the 
older colleges and universities, it has had the courage, perhaps 
temerity, to follow out certain lines of educational progress farther 
than has ever been done before. 



32 




In the Rain. 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

The Charter of the University was drawn with great breadth and 
liberality, Lowell's playful definition of a university as " a place 
where nothing useful is taught" had no countenance in Mr. Stan- 
ford's plans. In many ways he emphasized the practical nature of the 
higher education. His idea of a university would have been more 
nearly stated as " a place where nothing that is not useful is taught." 
Yet he would found "a university for both sexes, with the colleges, 
schools, seminaries of learning, mechanical institutes, museums, 
galleries of art, and all other things necessary and appropriate to a 
university of high degree." The object and purpose of the Univer- 
sity should be "to qualify students for personal success and direct 
usefulness in life," and "to promote the public welfare by exercis- 
ing an influence in behalf of humanity and civilization, teaching the 
blessings of liberty regulated by law, and inculcating love and rever- 
ence for the great principles of government as derived from the 
inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness." " It should be the aim of the institution," Mr. Stanford said 
to the Trustees, " to entertain and inculcate broad and general ideas 
of progress and of the capacity of mankind for advancement in civili- 
zation." "The object is not alone to give the student a technical 
education, fitting him for a successful business life, but it is also to 
instill into his mind an appreciation of the blessings of this Govern- 
ment, a reverence for its institutions, and a love for God and humanity, 
to the end that he may go forth and by precept and example spread 
the great truths, by the light of which his fellow-men will be elevated 
and taught how to attain happiness in this world and in the life 
eternal." "We deem it of first importance that the education of 
both sexes shall be equally full and complete, varied only as nature 
dictates. The rights of one sex, political or otherwise, are the same 
as those of the other sex, and this equality of rights ought to be fully 
rej:ognized." 

Mt is made the duty of the Trustees "to prohibit sectarian instruc- 
tion, but to have taught in the University the immortality of the soul, 
the existence of an all-wise and benevolent Creator, and that obedi- 
ence to His laws is the highest duty of man." "We have also 
provided that the benefits resulting from cooperation shall be freely 
taught. It is through cooperation that modern progress has been 
mostly achieved. Cooperative societies bring forth the best capaci- 
ties, the best influences of the individual for the benefit of the whole, 

34 




From Top of Museum — .Looking toward Foothills. 
Main Entrance— Looking toward Palo Alto. 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

while the good influences of the individual aid the many.") The 
President should be given full power to remove professors and 
teachers at will, to prescribe their duties, to enforce the course of 
study and the manner of teaching, and finally, "such other powers 
as will enable him to control the educational part of the University 
to such an extent that he may justly be held responsible for the course 
of study therein, and for the good conduct and capacity of the pro- 
fessors and teachers." Finally, lest the Trustees should feel ham- 
pered by what might afterward seem technical instructions, it was 
added that "the articles of endowment are intended to be in the 
nature of a constitution for the government and guidance of the 
Board of Trustees, in a general manner, not in detail." 

Such were the broad, general notions which lay in the founder's 
mind, and such the bent he would give to the University. By legal 
sanction, by solemn and repeated declaration, by material support, 
he sought to give shape to this ideal. Not wishing anything to be 
done vaingloriously, holding fully that slow growth is better than 
sudden and unsteady expansion, desiring that no one should be 
attracted to Palo Alto by other than its solid features, careful that 
nothing should be wasted, that no man's self-respect should be 
weakened by largess or patronage, unstinted in support of every 
project which commended itself to his judgment, only fearful lest 
buildings, or equipment, or teaching force should be accumulated 
in advance of the need — for display or for dazzling, — he prepared 
the way for an educational experiment under almost ideal conditions. 
For having chosen a President, he left him free, in strict accord with 
his theory and his Charter, to develop the educational, side as seemed 
to him best. 

The Charter outlined in general terms. To realize in detail, to 
place into actual and visible form the dream of the founders, to 
begin the traditions, to set the pace, to man the machinery, to avoid 
the seedy wayfarer from a past generation, the intellectual crank, 
tramp, and peripatetic, was a task which the founders must turn 
over to other hands. The lot fell upon David Starr Jordan, 

For the work to which he was called President Jordan had 
especial fitness. He had come upon the collegiate period just 
when the intellectual world of America was feeling the new Re- 
naissance. Scholasticism was losing its deadly grip on the uni- 
versity. The winds of freedom were freshening, if not beginning to 

36 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

blow.* A country boy, familiar with woods and streams and outdoor 
life, fate sent him to Cornell, then, of all the universities, most radical 
in its attack upon the despotism of the old Procrustean curriculum. 
The result was to confirm his impatience of artificial forms and 
medieval pettiness. Though a New Yorker by birth, he belonged 
to the West rather than to the East, and in the West some years 
of fairly itinerant teaching developed his powers and broadened his 
knowledge and acquaintance, until in 1884, the year in which Mr. 
Stanford conceived his University project, he was called to the 
presidency of the State University of Indiana. Of his work in Indiana, 
suffice it to say that he found a college of ancient type, untouched 
by modern thought, neglected by the State, and content to ramble 
on with its local patronage. In seven years the institution was 
transformed, its courses modernized, its roots struck deep into the 
St^te, itself acquiring a national reputation. 

\ In handing over to President Jordan the reins of power, Mr. Stan- 
ford had suggested fifteen as a limit to the number of the new faculty 
until something could be known as to the size of the student body. 
When the University opened with five hundred students, the number 
of instructors was quickly increased to thirty; but the "fifteen 
puzzle" had been successfully mvoked to ward off the invading 
army of applicants, and good and bad alike were obliged to bow to 
the inevitable fact that no vacancies existed. For the public had 
hardly become aware of Mr. Stanford's choice before the new Presi- 
dent had determined the professorships first to be filled and had 
selected the men to fill them. President Jordan's discernment was 
keen and his faith in young men strong. He had called into the 
Indiana faculty the most promising men he could find, fresh from 
Johns Hopkins or from study abroad. But salaries were low, and he 
could not hope to retain these men very long; and so every year it 
had been a part of his duties to go the round of the Eastern universi- 
ties on a recruiting mission^ The knowledge of men thus gained 
was invaluable, and he could now take his pick from the younger 
generation of scholars and teachers. It was a faculty of young men 
he at once determined to secure; men who had their spurs yet to 
win; men who could share his own enthusiasm and faith in the 
possibilities of Stanford and the Pacific Coast; men who could do 

* " Die Luft der Freiheit weht '' — a remark of Ulrich von Hutten frequently quoted 
by President Jordan ; a fit motto to place over the entrance to the University. 

37 



Stanford University and Thereaboiits . 

pioneer work and wait for the fruition; men of the people, to whom 
the office of teacher was hedged about with no false dignity; men 
who believed in the new times; sound scholars and inspiring teachers. 
A faculty thus composed and devoted to its chief could not fail to 
stamp its impress upon university organization; and in signal ways 
the methods and policy of Stanford show a divergence from those 
of even the more modern university types. 

The initial point of departure is in the matter of entrance require- 
ments. Formerly Latin, Greek, and Mathematics, in certain stated 
amounts, constituted the prescribed preparation for the college 
course. These, with more or less chinking in the way of some slight 
knowledge of history or the natural sciences, are still the require- 
ment for the traditional classical course. The importunate demands 
of other subjects for recognition m the college course induced the 
older type of college to institute "scientific" or " literary " courses 
of recognized inferior quality, for which distinctly less preparation 
was required, various lighter subjects being substituted for the Greek 
or Latin, or both. In many colleges there was a gradual tapering 
down of entrance requirements from the "classical" to the "scien- 
tific," through the "philosophical" and "literary"; and the same 
proportion was maintained in the college courses, these inferior 
courses being a concession to a backslidden age and a thorn in the 
flesh. 

Gradually, however, in all modern types, the despised courses 
attained dignity and value, and gradually entrance and graduation 
requirements were pushed up to an equality with those of the classical 
course. The transformation is still far from complete, but the move- 
ment is unmistakable. In the most modern type, of which we may 
take Harvard as the conspicuous example, there is but one standard 
for entrance, and great flexibility is secured by permitting a large 
amount of substitution. A more radical step has been taken at Stan- 
ford. It has exalted them of low degree, and perchance put down 
the mighty from their seat. With all the flexibility of the group 
system, no substitution has heretofore been permitted for certain 
Sacred Subjects whose absolute right to be prescribed has scarcely 
been questioned. Stanford has recognized, what probably no one 
would gainsay, that the ideal preparation for university studies is not 
a specified amount of knowledge, but a trained and developed mind. 
It is but an obvious deduction from what is now generally accepted 

38 




C^; 



In the Rain. 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

in educational thought that thoroughly successful work in any one 
of the subjects commonly included in the entrance group affords 
as good a basis for the college course as the same work in any other 
subject. Accordingly, with the exception of English, no entrance 
subject is prescribed at Stanford. The amount of preparation is fixed, 
but the student is offered a choice of twenty-two subjects. These 
are all reduced to the unit of a high-school year, making twenty-eight 
credits, of which twelve are necessary for admission. That is, 
English (counting two credits), and any other subjects which shall 
aggregate ten credits, fulfill all entrance requirements, whatever 
may be the line of work which the student proposes to take up in 
the University — whether Latin, Greek, Modern Languages, History, 
Law, Chemistry, Drawing and Painting, Engineering, or what not. 

Briefly, then, the University expects to receive students after the 
equivalent of a thorough high-school course has been completed. 
It leaves the applicant and the school to determine (among the 
twenty-two subjects) what shall constitute the preparatory course. 
But it aims to exact of the student and the school the same quality 
of work in each subject chosen. Chinking is therefore not recognized. 
In mathematics and the languages the requirements correspond to 
those sanctioned by current usage; in the natural sciences and in 
history the requirements in each have been advanced beyond what 
most universities have been content to receive. Into the vexed ques- 
tion of the high-school curriculum, the University, as a body testing 
the qualifications of candidates for collegiate study^ does not desire 
to enter. It withdraws academic compulsion as to the particular 
subjects which shall be taught, and concentrates it upon the quality 
and thoroughness of the teaching. It is, of course, conceivable 
that a student might be admitted in full standing without any mathe- 
matics and without any other language than English; and it is even 
conceivable that he might graduate without adding to his knowledge 
in these directions. When such a prodigy appears, the University 
expects to give him a hearty welcome and to survive his exit. 

The same simplicity of organization obtains regarding the Uni- 
versity curriculum. To many. Harvard, with its freedom of election, 
represents the extreme limit of radicalism. Stanford goes farther. 
The whole Ptolemaic System of cycles and epicycles, whereby ingen- 
ious college faculties have sought to accommodate the vagaries 
of individual minds, is abandoned. No subject is prescribed for 

40 







ttoAMiiMi 



hif'isL^^r.. 












Arcades of the Quadrangle. 



Stanford University a?id Thereabouts. 

graduation. Mathematics, Latin, English, Themes — all go by the 
board. Of course, certain subjects necessarily hang together. Ad- 
vanced work in any line presupposes the elementary work. Mathe- 
matics, and much of it, is absolutely indispensable to the student 
of engineering and physics. German and French are invaluable 
tools for advanced work in almost all fields. These things the 
student quickly enough discovers. Nor is the student left without 
guidance. He must select the work of some one department or 
professor as a major subject. It may be Latin, or German, or Mathe- 
matics, or Social Science, or Law, or Physiology, or Entomology, 
or Drawing, or Engineering. Whatever it is, when once selected, 
"this professor shall have the authority to require such student to 
complete this major subject, and also as minor subjects such work in 
other departments as the professor may regard as necessary or 
desirable collateral work. Such major and minor subjects, taken 
together, shall not exceed the equivalent of five recitations per week, 
or one-third of the student's time for the four years of undergraduate 
work." "The professor in charge of the major subject is expected 
to act as adviser to the student in educational matters, and the recom- 
mendation of such professor is necessary to graduation." 

To the objections which may be raised against this system, it is 
here sufficient to quote, in reply, two recent utterances: "But will 
not so much freedom induce narrowness, premature specialization ? 
The question may be answered by another. Does not everything, 
after all, depend upon the sort of men of which the faculty is com- 
posed ? For one, I would much rather trust for guidance in the 
choice of studies to the trained judgment of individual professors fit 
for their places than to the most ingenious Procrustean bed ever 
contrived by an academic council." ^ 

"No two students require exactly the same line of work in order 
that their time in college may be spent to the best advantage. It is 
better for the student himself that he should sometimes make mistakes 
than that he should throughout his course be arbitrarily directed by 
others. . . . The elective system, too, enables the student to 
bring himself into contact with the best teachers — a matter vastly 
more important than that he should select the best studies. . . . 
All systems are liable to abuse; and as there have been manystu- 



* Prof. Geo. E. Howard, The American University and the American Man. 

42 




The Power House. 

Looking down the Arcade. 



East Entrance. 
West Entrance. 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

dents who made a farce of the classical course, or who made it a 
mere excuse for four years spent in boating, or billiards, or social 
pleasures, so in the same way can a farce be made of the freedom 
allowed under the elective system." ^ 

Another answer may fairly be demanded: The test of experience. 
This answer, at Stanford, it is too early to give in statistical form.f 
Meanwhile some general results are already evident, and certain 
elective affinities can be traced. A good many prisoners to mathe- 
matics have been given their liberty; yet mathematics as an elective 
holds its own fairly well. The popularity of any strong department 
is assured. There is a distinct gain in the classroom atmosphere 
where the instructor feels that every student is taking the work 
because he has voluntarily chosen it. There is naturally some flutter- 
ing at first, and a good many major subjects are changed after the 
end of the first year. But the disposition to seek individual guidance 
from the major professor, and the professor's sense of responsibility 
as adviser to the student, are becoming more marked. 

This equality of departments and subjects goes farther than the 
courses usually brought under the conventional bachelor's degree. 
For example, Law is a department of the University, and stands on 
exactly the same footing as any other department. A student making 
Law his major must present the same entrance outfit as students 
choosing any other major subject, and the same four years is required 
for graduation, with the same responsibility for major and minor 
requirements, and the same freedom of election. At the time 
of graduation the student in Law will therefore have had thirty or 
forty hours of actual law work, and eighty or ninety hours of history, 
economics, languages, and the like. A graduate year wholly devoted i 

to Law will then fill out the measure of the present requirements of 
most law schools, and prepare the candidate for the bar examina- 
tions. 

It logically follows that only one baccalaureate degree is given; 
and since the classical conservatives have failed to forestall such 
action by patent or copyright, the designation "Bachelor of Arts" 
has been chosen. A student whose major subject is Latin graduates 



* President Jordan, Evolulion of the College Curriculum. 

t Statistics upon this point at the Indiana University are given in the Educational 
Review for September, 1891. 

44 



I 




D 



I. Encina Hall. 

3. Encina Gymnasium. 



2. Roble Gymnasium. 
4. Roble Hall. 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

as " Bachelor of Arts in Latin"; one whose major is Chemistry, as 
" Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry "; and so on. It undoubtedly shocks 
an antediluvian to come face to face with a " Bachelor of Arts in 
Steam Engineering"; yet one so labeled has been at large since 1892 
without serious consequences resulting. The usual criticism of this 
feature of the University wholly misses the point. The degree is 
merely the conventional recognition of the completion of the tra- 
ditional four years of undergraduate work; it has nothing to do with 
the question as to the relative value and importance of certain tra- 
ditional courses. Degrees are conferred at the end of each semester, 
in this respect following the plan of the University of Chicago. 

All of these features presuppose an exceedingly simple university 
organization. To the President, appointed and removable at will by 
the Trustees, is intrusted the selection of the Faculty and the determin- 
ing of the educational policy of the University. The Faculty, as a 
legislative body, does not exist. Not only has the President an abso- 
lute veto upon all legislation by the Faculty or Council, but all 
the ordinary routine business is done by committees named by the 
President, and responsible primarily to him and not to the Faculty 
or Council. The Faculty, as such, never meets, and the Council, 
as a rule, but twice a year, and that for the purpose of conferring 
degrees. Although there has never been any break in the harmony 
of administration, this is in part due to the President's wise choice 
of colleagues; for it is his boast that he never attends a committee 
meeting, and he never interferes with a committee's action. The 
"Department," as such, has no official existence, but is merely a 
convenient grouping for practical purposes. The professorship is 
the unit of organization; each professor is supreme in his own field, 
and in all the details of his work is responsible only to the President. 

All of these points of organization are but the outward expression 
of an inward spirit which dominates the life of the University. It 
would be presumptuous to assume that Stanford University, in its 
fifth year, has climbed the summit of academic excellence, or that it 
lacks nothing of that power of tradition and association, that mellow- 
ness and blending of all the harmonious colors of a rich and unfold- 
ing history, which belong to the older universities of the land. For 
these it must wait. But it may safely be affirmed that here is approxi- 
mated to an unusual degree that simplicity, that ideal freedom of the 
scholar and teacher, that wholesome comradery of instructor and 

46 





Museum and Vestibule. 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

student, which is the crown of academic life. No alma tnaterm.s'^xx^s 
more loyal devotion. The student spirit is hearty, self-reliant, manly 
and womanly. The dormitories are successfully managed by stu- 
dents on the cooperative plan; while seven hundred students live 
outside the halls — in private homes, in chapter houses, in boarding 
clubs. More than a third of the students are young women, and here, 
as everywhere in the West, coeducation is a matter of course and 
excites no antagonisms. 

It was no part of Mr. Stanford's plan to confide to the public his 
intentions regarding the future of the University. The landed 
estates were made inalienable, the buildings erected at lavish cost, 
the equipment provided, the growing expenses met with unstinted 
hand. To tide over, as he supposed, the settlement of the estate, he 
provided that the University should receive at his death two and a 
half million dollars. By the Charter all the powers and duties of the 
Trustees are to be exercised by the founders during their lives; and 
in accordance with his intention from the first, Mr. Stanford be- 
queathed the bulk of his fortune to his wife. 

The sudden death of Mr. Stanford, in the early summer of 1893, 
and the subsequent financial distress of the country, made necessary 
a temporary postponement of all plans for enlargement of work and 
increase of facilities. A year later, when the prospect of immediate 
settlement was bright, the Government of the United States inter- 
posed with a claim, growing out of its relations with the Central 
Pacific Railroad, amounting to almost the entire appraised value ot 
the estate. At the earnest solicitation of Mrs. Stanford, and with the 
cooperation of the government, the case has been pushed through 
the various courts with as little delay as possible. The United States 
Circuit Court in June, and the Circuit Court of Appeals in October, 
1895, both pronounced adversely to the Government, and the final 
decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, unanimously 
favorable to Mrs. Stanford, was handed down March 2, 1896. 

With the near approach of the settlement of the estate, there is 
a stir in the air premonitory of a new period of accelerated activity. 
The strain and suspense have been severe. Yet no essential feature 
has been sacrificed; no work actually undertaken has been allowed 
to suffer. With unfaltering purpose and undaunted courage, Mrs. 
Stanford has taken up the heavy burden imposed upon her, and 
carried the University through the crisis unharmed. Still, with 

48 



o 

"-1 



n 

o 

5 



O 




Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

straitened resources and incomplete equipment, the University has 
had to meet larger and larger classes and the constantly increasing 
demands of more advanced work. The final dismissal of the Gov- 
ernment suit does not at once release the estate from the Probate 
Court. No sudden affluence is likely to beset the University. Some 
expansion, however, will not be long delayed. New buildings for 
library, laboratories, and classrooms, books, fellowships, new depart- 
ments, and additional instructors, are imperatively demanded. When 
these are added, the University in its general features will be fairly 
realized. Times of trial there undoubtedly will be. But, with a 
prospective endowment greater than that which any university now 
enjoys, with scholarly traditions, high ideals, and fearless liberty in 
the truth, the Leland Stanford Junior University may face the future 
with confidence and unfalterino- courage. 




50 



SPECIAL MENTION. 




F 



ATHLETICS. 

ROM the opening of the University athletics 
has held an honorable place. Systematic 
gymnastic instruction and training is pro- 
vided by the University, open to all students, and 
counting toward graduation on the same basis 
as other university work. The hills and 
mountains and level highways of the plain 
claim their eager and constant devotees of 
trampers and wheelmen. But none of these 
seem to lessen the interest or activity in those 
traditional forms of athletic sport peculiarly cher- 
ished by the collegian. In baseball, football, ten- 
nis, and general track athletics, a large amount 
of superfluous student energy, which otherwise 
might easily turn to mischief, is harmlessly 
worked off. But athletic sports do more than 
this. They train the contestant in those quali- 
ties of endurance, courage, self-control, and 
strategy, of the highest value in the forma- 
tion of character and in the serious work 
of life. Happily free from the taint of pro- 
fessionalism, and conducted in a manly way, out- 
door college sports are among the most whole- 
some in effect and fragrant in memory of all 
student activities. 
In baseball the Faculty set the pace, and, with Swain at first base, 
Richardson catcher, Jordan pitcher, and Sampson, Howard, Marx, 
Sanford, Wood, Anderson, and Bryant supporting, the Faculty nine 
for a time did not hesitate to challenge any student aggregation what- 
ever. Faculty activity, however, seemed content with giving the 

52 



President Jordan. 
(Snap Shot.) 



Stmiford University and Thereabouts. 

proper send-ofF, or, at any rate, but feebly survived the loss of Swain 
and Sampson. A survival is the annual game between Faculty and 
Seniors, an important event of Commencement Week. As to the 
'Varsity Nine, whatever the original impulse, it at once took the lead 
in intercollegiate baseball, and its supremacy has never been seriously 
contested. Besides interclass contests, the 'Varsity plays numerous 
games with smaller colleges and amateur clubs. But the great series 
is with the University of California. Three games are scheduled 
each season, and thus far Stanford has not failed to win. 

Tennis has many devotees, and the University courts are con- 
tinuously in use. A tournament with the State University is a 
feature of each season, but the winning pace has hardly as yet been 
reached by Stanford. Track athletics has had many drawbacks, 
and Berkeley has easily carried off the palm in every intercollegiate 
contest thus far. A fine track at last is creating the proper enthu- 
siasm, and the future will doubtless show some different results. 

Athletic interest is by no means confined to the men; nor are the 
women good spectators merely. Roble Gymnasium has its own force 
of instructors, and is well equipped with modern apparatus. The 
Women's Athletic Association promotes especially tennis, wheeling, 
and basket-ball, and has even considered the question of track ath- 
letics. For women the game of basket-ball takes the place of foot- 
ball, giving the same opportunities for the exercise of the qualities 
of leadership, judgment, and strategy. Games with near-by pre- 
paratory schools are occasionally held, and it is not impossible that 
enthusiasm will go so far as to add this to the list of annual inter- 
collegiate contests. 

But the great athletic interest of the University centers in football. 
This is the sport calling for the highest exercise of courage, skill, 
and self-control, and of absorbing interest to the spectator. During 
the first year of the University Stanford was able, by brilliant indi- 
vidual playing, to win the great game from the State University. 
Every year since the tension has become greater. The presence 
of Walter Camp for three seasons has brought the game to a high 
degree of excellence; and Berkeley has accepted this challenge by 
calling each year the best coach which recent Yale teams could furnish. 
Every year each play approximates more nearly the irresistible force 
meeting the immovable body; still the irresistibility and the immova- 
bility depend upon so many contingencies and such perfect general- 

53 



Stanford University a7id Thereabouts. 

ship that the game gains rather than loses in excitement. The record 
stands thus: 

1891 Stanford, 14 Berkeley, 10 

1892 . . • . Stanford, 10 Berkeley, 10 

1893 \ Stanford, 6 . . . Berkeley, 6 

1894 ... Stanford, 6 .... Berkeley, o 

1895 Stanford, 6 Berkeley, 6 

Football practice begins about the middle of September and is 
continuous for about ten weeks. Every afternoon, at four or half- 
past, the candidates assemble on the oval for practicing plays and a 
skirmish between the two elevens. At first, with no coach but the 
captain, and much routine practice, the attendance of spectators may 
be small. But this is not allowed to continue. Ringing editorials 
in the college daily denounce the appalling apathy, and call upon the 
student body to save the honor of the University. Should a spec- 
tator unwittingly crack a joke at the expense of some unlucky raw 
recruit, he is instantly taken to task and made to realize the enormity 
of his offense. Meantime, the players are adjured, implored, to come 
out for practice; the spectators to wake up and cheer. Self-appointed 
critics arid^ciehsors discuss with awful seriousness the languor of the 
players and their lack of "snap," the criminal negligence of certain 
unnamed fellows who do not "come out," the indifference of the 
student body, the incompetence of the team. Along the edge of the 
crowd one hears mutterings at the folly of the captain and the incom- 
petence of the manager. Wise heads shake ominously at the pros- 
pect of making a winning team out of such indifferent material. Will 
the coach never come? The uninitiated grow sick at heart and are 
inclined to throw up the sponge. But to the initiated these are only 
symptoms of the fever-heat that is coming on. A practice game or 
two with outside teams is had. A word of praise occasionally is 
permitted to be spoken. The coach arrives. The crowds increase. 
The band comes out. The " rooters " organize, and cheer in unison 
to the leader's baton. Confidence slowly rises, though ruthlessly 
suppressed, lest some breath of it should reach the eleven and fatal 
over-confidence undo them. The eventful day approaches. The 
heavens are scanned and many ominous predictions ventured. The 
Eleven, now almost surely disclosed, steal away to Woodside for a 
few days' rest and secret practice, and the University settles back and 
holds its breath. At last Thanksgiving Day arrives. Rain or shine 
— no matter. A special train of fifteen or more cars rolls up to the 

54 



*Ti 




j:^^ 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

University, is gayly decked with cardinal, and the whole University, 
abundantly supplied with flags and tomtoms, piles in. A hilarious 
ride to San Francisco, a general diffusion of red over the city, mixing 
everywhere (as oil and water mix) with blue and gold, and then an 
assemblage of many thousands at Central Park. 

Full an hour before the time set for the game, the seats are filled. 
On the side especially reserved for the universities, one-half is banked 
with tier on tier of cardinal, the other flames with blue and gold. The 
tension of waiting is relieved by songs, cheering, and the vigorous 
martial music of rival university bands. The arrival of some distin- 
guished person, the Governor of the State perhaps, is the signal for 
a tremendous volley of cheers. At last, as the hour wears away, 
anxious faces turn toward the side lines. There is a flutter, the bands 
begin to play, and in a moment a deafening shout leaps from ten 
thousand throats, gayly decked banners, flags, canes, and hats wave 
in the air, and the teams enter and immediately begin to work ofl" 
their nervousness in a brief preliminary practice. The toss is made, 
sides chosen, the ball carefully placed for the kick-ofl", and the great 
annual game of football has begun. From start to finish, the spec- 
tators are in a contmuous state of suppressed or unsuppressed excite- 
ment. Almost no one keeps the seat he has paid so much for the 
privilege of occupying. There comes a breathing-space of ten min- 
utes between the two halves; but no one thinks of breathing. When 
a brilliant play is made by Stanford, the cardinal bleachers burst into 
the wildest animation, with splitting cheers, repeated again and again, 
while blue and gold is as still as the grave. When Berkeley makes 
a brilhant play, there is the same wild upheaval of blue and gold, 
while the cardinal is motionless. When at last the game is over, 
if the cardinal has won, the enthusiasm beggars description. What 
becomes of blue and gold would be hard to say, for all the spaces fill 
instantly with the swaying masses of cardinal, shouting themselves 
hoarse, and finally pouring out of the various entrances to redden 
the whole city. If the result is a tie, Stanford passes soberly and 
decorously out, gazing in a sort of dazed way at the pandemonium 
which has taken possession of blue and gold, as, with shoutings and 
wavings unutterable, they bear aloft their non-beaten heroes in tri- 
umphant procession round and round the oval. 

Such is the effervescence of college life. From the University 
point of view, all this tremendous excitement has appeared but as 

56 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

thin haze on some distant mountain. The serenity of the quadrangle 
has not been disturbed, and no deviation from the ordinary and reg- 
ular routine could have been detected. Even the football heroes 
have gone to lectures and recitations, and worked their solid hour in 
the laboratories as usual, and as before and after the great cataclysm. 




UNIVERSITY EXTRAS. 

In addition to the regular departments of university work, there 
are certain special activities which form a not unimportant feature 
of academic life. A series of Sunday morning discourses are given 
in the chapel by members of the faculty, and by representative cler- 
gymen of the different denominations. Tuesday evenings are devoted 
to miscellaneous university lectures, participated in not infrequently 
by special lecturers from outside. The University Philological Asso- 
ciation and the University Science Association, though less popular in 
form, are of large importance both to students and instructors. 

Extra student activity finds exercise in the Christian Associations, 
the various fraternities and literary societies, and in the collegiate 
and intercollegiate debates and essay contests, in which the interest 
increases from year to year. 

57 



Stanford University _ and Thereabouts. 

An Intercollegiate Debate, under the auspices of the Associ- 
ated Students of Stanford and of' the State University, is held in San 
Francisco in April of each year. A silver medal of the value of one 
hundred dollars has been offered by the San Francisco Examiner 
to the university first successful in three contests. With this is now 
coupled individual cash prizes, amounting to two hundred and fifty 
dollars, offered by United States Senator Perkins. This debate was 
won by Stanford in 1893 and 1894, and by the State University in 
1895. 

The Carnot Medal, for individual excellence in public speaking, 
offered by the Baron de Coubertin, in honor of the late Sadi-Carnot, is 
competed for annually by three representatives each of Stanford and 
the State University. The first contest, in 1895, was won by Mr. Sand- 
wick, of Stanford. The second contest, in 1896, was won by Mr. 
Flaherty, of Berkeley. 

In 1895, David Lubin, Esq., of Sacramento, offered two prizes 
of one hundred and fifty dollars for the best essay on the question 
of agricultural bounties. The first prize was won by John M. Ross, 
and the second by Arthur M. Cathcart. 

THE SUMMER SCHOOL. 

The summer vacation extends from the last of May to the first 
of September. Six or eight weeks of this time are utilized for a 
summer school at the University, open to students, to teachers, and 
to others qualified to undertake the work. Courses corresponding 
to those given in the University receive an equivalent credit toward 
graduation, but the school is supported by special fees paid directly 
to the instructors. 

THE HOPKINS LABORATORY. 

An almost indispensable auxiliary to the biological work of a 
university is a seaside laboratory, where the structure, development, 
and life history of marine animals and plants can be studied. This 
need at Stanford was met, in 1892, by Mr. Timothy Hopkins, of Menlo 
Park. The place selected for the Laboratory was Point Aloha, at 
Pacific Grove, ninety miles from Palo Alto. The Bay of Monterey is 
peculiarly favorable for investigations of this kind, and exceptionally 

58 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

fine collecting grounds are found in the immediate vicinity of the 
Laboratory. Two two-story buildings have been erected, capable 
of accommodating eighty students, and containing four general labo- 
ratories, one lecture-room, and six private rooms for special investi- 
gators. The rooms are provided with aquaria and running water, 
and all necessary facilities for biological study. The Laboratory 
possesses a full supply of collecting apparatus, including two boats. 
Mr. Hopkins has made large additions to the biological library of the 
University, which is available for the use of the Laboratory, and has 
provided for the publication of the results of original investigations. 
A series, known as " The Hopkins Laboratory Contributions to Biolo- 
gy," has been begun, and three numbers have already appeared. The 
sessions of the Laboratory are held during June and July of each year. 
Pacific Grove is an attractive summer resort, charmingly located 
on a slope running down to the sea, and in the midst of a heavy 
growth of native pine. Monterey, the old State capital, and Del 
Monte, with its unrivaled grounds, are only three miles distant, while 
the famous seventeen-mile drive passes directly through the town. 
The coast along the whole of the seventeen-mile drive, and on to 
Point Lobos, is exceedingly picturesque and impressive. The sur- 
roundings are ideal for either rest, recreation, or study. 




^0^m 




■m 



59 




J^lS^i^^SM 



Evolution of the Palo Alto Station. 
T891 — 1894 — 1896. 



THE SURROUNDINGS. 



THE peninsula formed by Ihe ocean and the south arm of the 
bay is the natural suburban home of San Francisco. Already 
numerous towns along the coast railroad have been largely 
peopled by San Francisco capitalists and business-men. Millbrae, 
Burlingame, San Mateo, Belmont, San Carlos, Redwood, Fair Oaks, 
and Menlo Park are examples; and, with fast train service, this area 
will easily extend to San Jose. The railroad keeps close to the -bay; 
and this may be the reason why all the choicer residence sites have 
been neglected. Certain it is, that the millionaires, who thickly 
bestrew the land, have turned away from the foothills, with their 
magnificent outlooks, and established themselves close to the rail- 
road, on the level plain. The glorious heights are left for posterity. 
Meanwhile, the millionaires have done much to make life endurable 
in the plain. At Menlo Park, where the valley widens out into a 
beautiful stretch of white and live-oaks, large estates succeed one 
another for miles between the railroad and the bay, and even extend 
westward toward the hills. East, on the Middlefield road, is now 
being erected an imposing brick structure, the future home of a great 
Catholic Theological Seminary. 

PALO ALTO. 

Half a mile southeast of Menlo, the railroad crosses the San 
Francisquito, close to the Palo Alto tree, the last of the race of se- 
quoias in the valley. Here, at the extreme edge of Santa Clara 
County, begins the town-site of Palo Alto, consisting of nearly a 
thousand acres, covered for the most part with a fine growth of oaks. 
Palo Alto, the University town, is the creation of the last four years. 
Originally, a part of the Hopkins estate, it was platted as a town-site 
by Mr. Timothy Hopkins in 1888. In 1891, when the University 
opened, there was the open shed which served as a flag-station, a 
barn, and a house or two. Mr. Joseph Hutchinson, a San Francisco 

61 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

lawyer, graduate of the State University, and later non-resident lec- 
turer in law at Stanford, was the first to build a home in the new 
Palo Alto. This was in 1891; but growth was slow in starting, and 
it was not until the summer of 1892 that the building of the town 
began in earnest. A hotel, bank, stores, livery stables, churches, pri- 
vate schools, and public schools followed. University people, unable 
to find living quarters on the campus, went home-hunting in Palo 
Alto, and now half of the Faculty and a third of the students are 
located there. Despite hard times and uncertainties, the town has 
steadily grown. Springing up in response to university needs, and 
as a suburban residence town, Palo Alto has escaped most of the 
unpleasant features of the usual California small town. Building lots 
have kept of fair, even generous, size; dwellings are comfortable, 
even -attractive; white paint and whitewash are conspicuously absent; 
streets are broad, and oaks abundant. There are no saloons, and 
the temperance sentiment is fortified by a clause in every deed, forever 
prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors. 

The town was incorporated in 1894. A public-spirited Improve- 
ment Club looks out for the general tidiness and beautifying of the 
place. The growth of Palo Alto into an attractive, progressive, 
modern town is assured. 

MAYFIELD. 

Two miles farther on the county road, though still almost as near 
the University, is Mayfield, about as large as Palo Alto, and of some 
commercial importance. Its annex, College Terrace, is already the 
home of a considerable University population. 

PRIVATE GROUNDS. 

The Stanford private grounds lie against the San Francisquito, 
which bounds the estate on the northwest. The road winds grace- 
fully along the east bank of the stream, overhung with the branches 
of oak, bay, maple, cypress, and pine. A quarter of a mile from the 
entrance the road divides to include the sloping lawns, the stately 
trees, and the profusion of flowers and vines which frame in the 
house — a modest but comfortable mansion, whose verandas catch 
glimpses of the distant hills through the tracery of luxuriant foliage 
and over vineyards and arboretum. On past the house, and roses, 

62 




The Stanford Residence. 

Vineyard. 

President's House. 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

violets, orange and lemon groves, gardens, and orchards, succeed one 
another, until finally the old county road is reached almost at the en- 
trance to Cedro Cottage. Eastward the ornamental grounds give 
place to a large vineyard, extending fi-om the county road to the con- 
servatories. 

THE ARBORETUM. 

The Arboretum includes a tract of about three hundred acres, be- 
ginning a quarter of a mile from the quadrangle and extending to 
the county road. On the west it reaches up to the vineyards and con- 
servatories, and on the east extends well on toward Escondite Cot- 
tage and Mayfield. It was Mr. Stanford's desire to include in this 
tract every kind of tree adapted to California, and many thousand 
specimens, representing countless varieties from all parts of the 
world, grow here together. Near one corner is the Arizona Garden, 
with its bristling cacti and other uncompromising specimens of Na- 
ture's pessimistic moods. Besides the broad University Avenue, 
which leads without a waver straight to Palo Alto, dozens of leisurely 
roads go winding through the trees in all directions, and each keeps 
its own seclusion between its close border of pine or glossy rows of 
bushes. Nearly all, after their roundabout meanderings, will lead 
you at last to where you look up the long, green vistas and see 
standing upon a slight rise of ground at the end a simple and 
beautiful mausoleum of polished granite, the Stanford tomb. 

ESCONDITE. 

Half a mile east of the quadrangle is the Coutts house, in old 
French style, rechristened by President Jordan as Escondite Cottige. 
It was built by one Peter Coutts (as he called himself), who suddenly 
made his appearance in Mayfield in 1875. A large establishment was 
set up, including extensive stables for cattle, and a two-story brick 
building, which served as library and schoolroom for his boys. Reach- 
ing out to still greater things, he planned a fine mansion atop the 
nearest foothill, put a tunnel under his hill, dug an artificial lake, and 
a mile or so farther on built a round brick tower, as the beginning of 
a supposed system of water-works. Farmer Coutts was lavish in ex- 
penditure, but not social. Servants were hired on the absolute con- 
dition that they never received visitors; and who he was or where he 

64 





Mausoleum. 
Cactus Garden. 



Stayiford University and Thereabouts. 

came from nobody could find out. Suddenly, in the midst of all his 
planning, M. Coutts disappeared, and was never more seen. Some 
said Madame was homesick, and he yielded to her entreaties to see 
France once more, intending a speedy return. As time went on, this 
story found less and less favor. It began to be hinted that there had 
once been a mysterious visit of the French Consul at San Francisco, 
with a resulting transfer of money, whereby the Consul was much 
benefited. A threatened repetition of such a visit by a new Consul 
was the occasion of the sudden exit. However that may be, and 
this version is firmly lodged in local tradition, the mysterious French- 
man never came back. Later, the estate was purchased by Mr. 
Stanford, in England, of a representative of M. Coutts. The stables 
were used for the running horses, and the chicken ranch is now 
known as Pine Cottage. The cottage, just as the Frenchman left it, 
made a home for President Jordan for two and a half years. In the 
brick library were held the first entrance examinations to Stanford 
University: it is now the Psychological Laboratory. 

CEDRO. 

Just across the San Francisquito, a mile west of the quadrangle, 
and at the extreme edge of the Stanford private grounds, Mr. Ariel 
Lathrop, brother of Mrs. Stanford, once built a tiny summer cottage, 
and surrounded it with a delightful profusion of palms, oranges, figs, 
roses, and all the rest of the California foliage. Not even the Stan- 
ford grounds, with all their magnificence, can rival the cozy, home- 
like luxuriance of Cedro. It is now the home of Professor Jenkins. 

ADELANTE, LOS TRANCOS. 

Among the houses which fell to the estate in the course of its 
growth, two — Adelante Villa and Los Trancos Villa — are large, sub- 
stantial country houses. Adelante, densely set about with cypress 
and eucalyptus, was first, in 1891, the home of the girls' preparatory 
school, afterward located in Palo Alto as Castilleja Hall. The drive 
or walk from the University is picturesque, and the villa is still the 
home of students. Los Trancos, a mile farther on, although attract- 
ive in location and surroundings, is too far away and too isolated to 
get itself taken into the University family, and it stands stark empty, 
as it has done for years. 

66 




Eucalyptus Avenue. 



Entrance to Cedro. 
Cedro Barn. 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

THE STOCK FARM. 

Mr. Stanford was a great lover of fine horses, a keen observer 
of their characteristics, and a firm behever in the great possibilities 
of development and improvement through training. In 1877, he 
established the Palo Alto Stock Farm, which, by reason of the original 
system of training carried out and the remarkable results achieved, 
has become famous the country over. The "kindergarten" for the 
weanlings, short distances for the development of speed, and the in- 
fusion of thoroughbred blood have been the cardinal features of the 
Palo Alto system. 

The Palo Alto Stock Farm has been the home of many celebrated 
horses — the great Electioneer, Arion, Sunol, Palo Alto, Advertiser, 
and many others hardly less famous. 

The Farm has two trotting departments — one at Palo Alto, the 
other at the Vina Ranch. There is also a thoroughbred department 
at Palo Alto. In all, the Farm now contains six hundred fine-bred 
horses. The trotting department, of most interest to visitors, is sit- 
uated a half-mile west of the quadrangle, a village in itself almost, 
with its large barns, its long rows of stables, its paddocks, its feed- 
mill and blacksmith-shop, its cottages for employees, its perfectly 
kept mile and quarter-mile tracks, — all prettily framed with oaks 
and eucalyptus. Visitors are always vvelcomed. 




68 





^ 



Lagunita. 
Stock Farm. 




gpMiei' 








Old Custom House, Monterej'. 

Hopkins Laboratory. 

Chinese Villasre. 



TRAMPING GROUNDS. 

FOOTHILLS. 

TWENTY minutes' brisk walk south of the University buildings 
brings one to the first ridge of the foothills, though, if the way 
should lie along the favorite path by the Frenchman's Lake, it 
would take longer. 

Passing behind the quadrangle and out upon the new county road, 
one presently climbs a padlocked gate into the field and walks up a 
farm road between two fields topped with pine and cypress of the 
Frenchman's planting. The stroller is, indeed, upon the domain 
which was to have formed Farmer Coutts' park. A broad terrace, 
grain-covered, sweeping easily up to the summit, still marks the 
avenue of approach to the chateau that was never built. The black, 
round mouth of a tunnel opens from another side of the same hill — 
some say for water-works, some say to connect with the cellar and 
afford a secret means of escape in case of an unexpected visit of the 
officers of the law. In the little vale lies the tiny lake, all built of 
solid masonry, and diversified by a minature islet of rocks tossed 
together in careful confusion. Poplars, to remind him of home, the 
Frenchman planted in long Imes beside the water-courses, bordering 
the avenues, and skirting the lake; and in the fall, turning first gold 
and then stark gray, the}' hold to their traditions with a quaint per- 
sistency. At the lake's farther end stands a small grove of pepper 
and cypress, and then you come upon a brick bridge, which crosses 
nothing in particular and leads nowhere, but is not, therefore, less in 
keeping with its surroundings. 

Beyond these storied spots, where men and maids love to loiter 
of a Sabbath afternoon, spreads the field again, and then, on all 
sides, begin the sharp, short slopes of the hills. They run up 
austerely, only to round off in urbane softness or to spread out again 
in expanses of gentlest undulations. They jostle each other boldly, 
yet hold concealed among them secret basins of verdure, secluded 
dells, ensconced in chemisal and the glossy bushes of the Christmas- 

71 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

berry, hidden nooks among the trees, and winding canons, small and 
secure. Winter mantles them with the living emerald of the wild-oats, 
and in summer they lie beneath the sun in velvety shadings of yellow, 
and brown, and gray, bestrewn with the dark green of scattered oaks. 
One may climb them straight up or follow the dilatory wanderings 
of horse-paths, which compass them over and around and about. In 
either case the ridge which sweeps round the University in a fine, 
protective semicircle is soon reached. The broad top of the high- 
est mound was once dreamed of as the University's site; and stand- 
ing here, under a magnificent expanse of sky, one looks down upon 
the University buildings, the arboretum, the town, the bay; the ex- 
tending plain, with its farms and villages, its groves and dotting 
trees; the mountains rimming the horizon almost to San Francisco 
and Oakland. To the left the eye rests upon rolling country extend- 
ing thirty miles northward; to the right, across the tops of lower foot- 
hills, loom the dark sides of Black Mountain; while behind the ob- 
server the higher ranges rise gradually until their crown of sequoias 
fringes the tender horizon line against the western sky. 




72 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

MOUNTAINS. 

Behind the foothills, with their constant invitation, rise the heights 
of the Santa Cruz Mountains, even more alluring to the tired book- 
learner. The hills can be reached every day in the year; the moun- 
tains require a four-hour tramp, and are not to be conquered seven 
days in the week. 

In outing gear, with notebook, or sketchbook, or botany box, or 
insect net, with gun or with book, alone, or by twos, or by dozens, 
both students and instructors tramp off on a Saturday, or a Sunday, 
or a holiday, for this exhilarating climb. Across Black Mountain, up 
the Goat Ranch road, by Portola, by Searsville, by Woodside, — it 
matters not, all roads lead to the summit. As one gradually ascends, 
the plain lowers and spreads out, the outline of the distant Coast 
Range becomes more distinct, the foothills sink into little mounds 
and ridges, the lagoons and creeks leading into the bay show all 
their devious windings in the silvery threads that streak the plain. 
Redwood, Menlo, Palo Alto, Mayfield, Mountain View, and San 
Jose unite in one long line, which extends from horizon to horizon. 
All the while the road, bordered by oak, manzanita, madrono, buck- 
eye, sequoia, and chemisal, is winding along the lower slope of the 
ascent, or following a mountain stream back and forth, or climbing 
surely around the rocky cliffs and above the precipitous gulches of the 
upper steeps, and at last you are there, on the very tiptop of the 
backbone of the peninsula. Now shake yourself free of trees and 
rocks, and make for some bleak point in the great bare fields of the 
summits. To the east you look down over the precipitous wooded 
shoulders of the mountains upon the familiar wide plain far below, 
the bay, the stately line of the Coast Range beyond, and if the day 
be especially clear, the Sierra Nevadas in a faint, dim distance. To 
the west, a world of tumbled-up country, bare and dark, and away 
off, like a silver band across the horizon, the Pacific, Perhaps, as 
you gaze, you can distinguish the snowy gleam of breakers on the 
shore, or perhaps you see the birth of the fog, and spellbound 
watch it as it rises and drifts, covering the farther landscape, softly 
filling the nearer clefts, and finally, rolling up to your feet, spreads 
out to the edge of the sky in one vast, level waste of gigantic billows. 

Sportsmen, fishermen, and campers know this ridge at many a 
picturesque point along its upper slopes. At Murphy's, at Saratoga, 

73 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

at Skylands, along Boulder Creek, the redwoods add their stately 
charm to the mountains; while northwest of Monterey Bay lies the 
Great Basin, a sweep of nearly a hundred thousand acres of untouched 
sequoias, no wagon-road piercing its quiet seclusion, and but a sin- 
gle bridle-path leading from Murphy's to Santa Cruz. 




AWHEEL. 

The whole region is the paradise of wheelmen. Through twelve 
months in the year, the level roads, the long stretches of plain, the 
mountains, the near-by towns, the ocean, the mere exhilaration of air 
and motion allure. There is San Jose, eighteen miies away, Saratoga 
as many, Los Gatos twenty-two, with innumerable shorter spins in 
every direction. There is the ride to Mountain View, to Redwood, to 
Belmont, the fine roads and glimpses of millionaire estates at Menlo. 
There is the ride up the San Francisquito, past Adelante Villa and 
Los Trancos, and home perhaps, by the Arastradero, the Page Mill 
road, and Mayfield; or, if one is out for a longer trip, passing the 
Arastradero, and pushing on to Searsville, past Portola, the Sears- 
ville reservoir (alack for its muddy associations!), a little rise of ground, 

74 





kz. 



Along the Seventeen-Mile Drive. 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

a descent to Woodside, hallowed of football memory, and then a 
magnificent coast into Redwood, down a winding road, with pic- 
turesque views and colors, across the cafion and over the bay; or, if 
more venturesome yet, a turn to the left at Searsville, a steady push 
to the summit, a quick descent on the other side, and then La Honda, 
Pescadero, San Gregorio, Spanishtown, Half Moon Bay, and home 
again by San Mateo. All this is fair vacation sport, and not uncom- 
mon. And these vacation rides lengthen out in every direction: to 
San Francisco; to Alum Rock; to Niles Cafion; to Alameda, Oak- 
land, Berkeley even; to Mt. Hamilton; to Madrone Springs; to Santa 
Cruz, over the Saratoga road, or through Los Gatos; to Monterey and 
Pacific Grove; and in the long summer vacations even to Yosemite 
and Southern California. 







76 



THE SEASONS. 




EPTEMBER begins the University year. Aside from 
the deep green of vineyards, orchards, lawns, the 
arboretum, and scattered oaks, all else — hills, fields, 
roadsides, — is tawny gray, dinged by the dust, 
which has been settling down through the long 
rainless summer. Yet, the main highways are well 
kept, and he who stays upon them will not be too 
unpleasantly reminded of the dusty world. Occa- 
sionally, the ocean breeze may be held back by a 
hot norther from the Sacramento, and the thermom- 
eter go soaring up into the nineties; but this is rare. 
The days are of that delightful quality which makes shade preferable 
to sun. A gentle breeze insinuates itself into afternoons, and crisp, 
bracing evenings force porch loiterers quickly indoors. The nights are 
cold and damp, and an occasional fog creeps up from the bay to defy 
the sun for an hour or two in the morning. The days follow each other 
with scarcely a perceptible change. Gradually the last tremors of the 
trade-winds cease. More clouds appear and lend a radiant brilliancy 
to the sunsets. Deep purple tints set off the distant mountains, now 
grown indistinct in the hazy atmosphere. September shades off into 
October, and then the full glory of the year is revealed. Everything 
which made September delightful is a little intensified; the days are 
calmer, the sun more tempered; the colors deepen in sky and field; 
the air invigorates. Everything invites to outdoors. November 
comes on, still without change, except that the sharpness of night 
and morning is gradually extended. At last — it may be just before 
Thanksgiving, or just after, — there comes a break. Showers there 
have been earlier — in September perhaps; but they scarcely inter- 
rupted the monotonous process of the days. Suddenly, however, — 
yet after days of preparation, as one afterward recalls, — the heavens 
open. Newcomers who had begun to scoff at the possibility of rain 
in California, are abundantly cured of their skepticism. The water 



77 



Stanford University arid Thereabouts. 

comes down in sheets, in torrents. A sudden strengtii leaps into the 
south wind. Woe to fences, trees, houses — everything not well found- 
ed. If it is to be a wet season, approved of farmers, December and 
January will continue pretty consistently on their way, the rain pouring 
down without effort, and on slightest provocation, until the oozy soil 
can take no more, and every shower brings a flood. Bicycles will 
not be discarded, but will sneak out on half-days of pleasant weather, 
as if dismayed at their own temerity. If it is to be a dry winter, 
accompanied by growlings and mutterings of farmers, the infrequent 
rains will be set off" by long stretches of quiet, sunshiny days, begun 
by frosty mornings, with thin films of ice clinging to all the tiny 
pools. But whichever kind may occur — and seasons are never twice 
alike in California — with the advent of February or March, at the 
latest, the winter is broken. January sees the brown of hills and 
plain give way to green. The perfume of new grass and all growing 
things, of fresh-ploughed fields and gardens, fills the air. By March 
the country is carpeted with a vivid luxuriance of wild flowers. 
Mariposa lilies, cool and delicate, frail baby-blue-eyes, yellow violets, 
cream- cups in buff, paint-brush in sprays of vermilion, lupine in dark 
blue, nightshade in the most tender purple, Bride-of-Lammermoor 
in starry white, the lusty, flaming poppy, and hundreds more, awake 
in untold profusion, and laugh in the brightest sunshine in the world. 
In April the roses, which in countless exquisite varieties fill the 
yards, climb the trees, and embower the houses, burst into a riot 
of bloom. To keep them properly cut is no light task, and the 
housewife finds the daily renewing of vases in every room a material 
if delightful addition to her cares. March and April, with the whole 
State one vast flower-garden and blossoming orchards of cherry, 
plum, prune, peach, apricot, and orange perfuming the air, assume 
the aspect of a general floral carnival. Passers in the street, passen- 
gers on the cars, idlers and workers alike, go laden with fragrant 
burdens, and everybody makes lavish present to everybody else 
of the common but cherished wealth of the spring. 

In May, the rains wear themselves out. The trade-winds, loosened 
in March, may rise by afternoons into irritating intensity. A Sacra- 
mento norther may possibly get through; but usually the University 
closes without a break in the perfect equipoise of early summer, 

A few students stay the summer through. The only oppressive 
days come during the once, twice, or even thrice-repeated visit of 

78 



Stanford University and Thereabouts. 

the unwelcome north wind. The cool nights touch fifty-six degrees 
to fifty-eight degrees; the midday heat rests at seventy-five degrees 
to seventy-eight degrees. The afternoon brings the ocean breeze, 
with never-failing refreshment. The cool, deserted arcades invite 
to rest and sanity. No storm mars any plan of tennis, or wheeling, 
or study, or tramping. It is "the glorious climate of California." 




79 



HAIL, STANFORD, HAIL! 

Words by A. W. S. Music by M. R. S., 1893. 



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1. Where the rolling foot hills rise Up t' wards mountains high- er, Whereat eve the 



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Coast Kange lies, 



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In the sun- set 



fire, 



Flushing deep and pa ling; 



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Here we raise our voi - ces hail -ing. Thee our Al - ma Ma 



ter. 



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From the foot hills to the bay. It shall ring. As we sing, It shall ring and 

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Hail, Stan-ford hail! 



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float al- way; 



Hail, Stan -ford hail! 



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2. Tender vistas ever new 

Thro' the arches meet the eyes, 
Where the red roofs rim the blue 

Of the sun-steeped skies. 
Flecked with cloudlets sailing. 
Here we raise our voices hailing 
Thee our Alma Mater. 
—Chorus. 



When the moonlight-bathed arcade 

Stands in evening calms. 
When the light wind half afraid 

Whispers in the palms, 
Far off swelling, failing. 
Student voices glad are hailing 
Thee our Alma Mater. 

—Chorus. 









Surpassing; elegance^ rapid fligfht, and minimum cost* 

These are what you secure by a transcontinental trip 
on the Sunset Limited* 

The reputation of the Sunset Limited for elegfance, and 
for §;ood faith to its patrons^ has been so securely made it 
is no longfer in the field of controversy* 

There is no other transcontinental train that for one 
moment can by any one be held equal to it* It has all the 
essentials and luxuries of a modern first-class hotel* 

COMPOSITE CAR^ with ample smoking:, conversation 
and observation room, writing;-desk and library, lavatoryt 
barber's chair, and bath* 

COMPARTMENT CAR, with matchless parlor, ob- 
servation room and social salon for the ladies, with writing: 
desk and library, and seven regfal compartments, separate or 
en suite, at pleasure of the occupants ; and drawing: rooms 
and sections in cars for such, and trained servants, includ- 
ing; a waitingf-maid for the ladies ; and a strictly first-class 
dining-car, with faultless cuisine* 

In this car your meals are served, when you will and 
what you will, from an ample menu, and at such cost as 
may meet your approval in the order* 

The service is a la carte, with prices that are below 
figures that might well be called reasonable* 

It costs no more to go East on the Sunset Limited than 
it does to do so by trains of inferior excellence. 

Leaves San Francisco Tuesdays and Saturdays, at I0;00 
p*m* ; Los Angeles, Wednesdays and Sundays, at 3:00 p*m* 



WILLIAM DOXEY 



DEALS IN 



BOOKS 



BOOKS : Attention is entirely devoted to books, 

AND NOT TO STATIONERY AND OTHER USUAL ACCOMPAN- 
IMENTS OF THE BOOK BUSINESS, AND AS A CONSEQUENCE 
Wm. DoXEY has THE LARGEST AND MOST INTELLIGENTLY 
SELECTED STOCK ON THE COAST. 

CATALOGUES of new importations of standard 

BOOKS ARE issued AT FREQUENT INTERVALS, AND FUR- 
NISHED ON APPLICATION. 

NEW BOOKS RECEIVED AS PUBLISHED. 

GUIDE BOOKS: Baedeker's, Murray's and others: 
AS also many works on Japan. 

WILLIAM DOXEY 

publisher and importer of books 

San Francisco: . 631 Market Street, under Palace Hotel 
London: ... 26 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, W. 



V»,90. 








Manzanita Hall . . 



Preparatory School 
for Boys 



PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA 




Dormitor}'. 

' I ^HE aim of the school is to fit boys for college, and especially to 
■*■ give thorough preparation for entrance into Stanford Universit3^ 
The school claims superiority in the following points : It is 
located in the shadow of a great university, on the outskirts of a 
village from which saloons are excluded by a strong public sentiment, 
by a town ordinance, and by a prohibitory clause in the title-deeds. 
Its students are brought early under the influence of university 
methods, and are thoroughly prepared for univer>ity work. Its in- 
structors are all professional teachers and specialists in their depart- 
ments. They are required to keep in touch with the university, and 
to understand the details of the requirements for admission. Its 
graduates are admitted to the university without examination, on 
recommendation of the principal. Only working students are ad- 
mitted to the school. For further information, address Frank 
Cramer, Principal. 



PALACE HOTEL 



SAN FRANCISCO 



iiliSllSillMe?: 




HEADQUARTERS FOR THE . 
FACULTY AND STUDENTS . 
OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY 



WHY NOT INRURF'"^"^ 



Tb^ . . . 



BEST, LARGEST, AND 
STRONGEST COMPANY 



A\utU2iI Life 
losurapce Co* 



RICHARD A. McGURDY 

President 




of N^w YorK 

ASSETS - $221,000,000 
SURPLUS - $27,000,000 

Its Contracts are the 

Most Liberal Offered 



All old adage says, 
"NOTHING IS CHEAP 

THAT IS VALUELESS " 

So with Life Insurance: 

A premium paid to an insecure com- 
pany purchases disappointment and bitter 
regret. 

When applying for Life Insurance seek 
to know if the company will survive you. 



Mutual Life Building, San Francisco 



Q_ 



A. B. FORBES & SON 

nutual Life Building 

5an Francisco, Cal. 



/// Comparison, THE MUTUAL LIFE 

i In 53 Years 



has paid its Policy- 
holders a Stupendous 
Sunty exceeding 

$41 1,000,000 



b 



Castilleja Hall 



Preparatory School 
for Girls ^ ^ ^ ^ 



PALO ALTO 

CALIFORNIA 




ffij^gj-s- 



THIS SCHOOL was founded for the purpose 

« of fitting girls for Stanford University, 

to whicli its graduates are admitted 

without examination, on recommendation 

of the principals. 

There are two departments — primary 
and college preparatory. Girls of all 
ages are admitted. 



Miss E. B, PEARSON 
Miss L. H, FLETCHER 

Principals 



Sixth Year begins 

September 7, J 896 



> 

o 

3 



w 





Hotel Del Monte, Monterey, Cal. ^ ^ 



jT 



HE rank of this peerless watering-place, 
as a combination of the most elegant, 
most refined, most homelike, having the most 
genial climate always, and the most charming 
semi-tropic surroundings, and yet most moderate 
in rates, is and must always remain unchallenged. 
^ ^ ^ Open for the entertainment of guests 
twelve months every year. 



&^A 







